Least Anticipated Movies of Summer 2012

The Avengers. The Dark Knight Rises. Prometheus. The Bourne Legacy. Men in Black III. What do they all have in common? They're all among the most anticipated movies of the summer. These are some of the titles that routinely pop up in online articles about the upcoming cinematic season. But if we're being honest, summer always pumps out a few flicks that make your eyes roll back into your head too. No one ever writes articles about them, do they? Well, that's about to change. Below are my picks for the films I'm least anticipating this summer. I'm not saying they're definitely going to be bad, but they absolutely don't seem very promising on the surface.

LOL

LOL - Miley Cyrus went from being an annoying tween star to being a young woman trying way too hard to shake the image of an annoying tween star. This new "grown up" effort finds her cast as a high school senior who discovers her longtime male best friend could be the true love of her life. (Now there's a plot we haven't seen five gazillion times before!) While there may be some mild interest in seeing Cyrus act alongside co-star Demi Moore, LOL seems a little too much like Miley's attempt to put on her big girl pants. The movie, according to the MPAA, contains "teen sexuality, drug and alcohol use, and language." Hannah Montana never had more than a chaste kiss! We get it, Miley. You're "edgy." But that doesn't you're not also still annoying.

That's My Boy - Adam Sandler has his fans, but it's hard to deny that his recent output has been, um, deplorable. (And if you disagree, you clearly haven't seen the sludge heap that was Jack and Jill.) This new comedy casts him as Donny, a guy who fathered a child while still a teenager. When the now-grown boy (played by Andy Samberg) turns up years later, Donny has trouble being a parent, given that he's ironically living in suspended adolescence. A new Adam Sandler movie promises the same potty and sex jokes as every other Adam Sandler movie, in addition to probable cameos from talentless pals like Nick Swardson. Further unsweetening the deal, That's My Boy marks the directorial debut of Sean Anders, the guy who wrote Sex Drive and Mr. Popper's Penguins. One can be forgiven for assuming this movie will be whatever the opposite of a laugh riot is.

Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection - I'm not a blanket Tyler Perry hater. I've enjoyed several of his films, including the early Madea ones. But let's keep it real here: Madea is a one-joke character, and that joke stopped being amusing a few years ago. Perry is also showing the strain of cranking out two movies a year; the quality level of them is dropping rapidly. The last Madea outing, Big Happy Family, felt as though Perry had simply turned on the camera and asked his cast to improvise until he had enough material to fill up 90 minutes. This time around, the character takes in a Wall Street investment banker who was involved with a mob-operated Ponzi scheme. Madea works best as a down-home, no-nonsense granny. Putting her in the middle of such a contrived plot will only serve to highlight her more annoying qualities.

Step Up Revolution - The first two Step Up pictures were sleeper hits. The third, filmed in 3D, was an unexpected flop. Despite this fact, someone thought it would be a great idea to go ahead and make a fourth installment, also in 3D. Hey, maybe the teenager audience was just "sleeping in" during the couple of weeks Step Up 3 was in theaters! Sometimes the studios try to create a franchise where one does not really exist. This is one of those times. Every Step Up movie is essentially a Xerox copy of the original, with the quality diminishing at a proportional rate. Channing Tatum moved on. It's time for everyone else to as well.

The Apparition- In the movie Mean Girls, there's a character who frequently uses the word "fetch" as an adjective. At one point, the meanest of the mean girls barks at her, "Quit trying to make 'fetch' happen!" I feel the same way about Ashley Greene, who stars in The Apparition. Hollywood needs to quit trying to make her happen. Although the movies are wildly popular, the supporting players in the Twilight saga are uniformly stiff, boring, and charisma-free. (The same could be said of two of the three leads, now that I think about it.) Nonetheless, Ashley Greene keeps popping up on magazine covers, in print ads, and in commercials, despite never having done a single interesting thing on screen. Maybe the girl has talent and simply hasn't been given the chance to show her stuff yet. It's doubtful that this seeming Paranormal Activity clone will be the one to do it - especially since the few released publicity shots focus on showing Greene in her underwear.

Oogieloves in the BIG Balloon Adventure - Just look at that poster. The Oogieloves are like a cross between the Teletubbies and something H.R. Giger would have dreamed up. They look like Barney's even more annoying cousins. Okay, okay...the movie is aimed at very young children. It's bright and colorful, and probably easy for tykes to follow. Then again, summer promises to bring us a new Pixar movie, the Aardman-produced ThePirates: Band of Misfits, and the cool-looking ParaNorman. Is this the movie you want to take your kids to come August? Me neither.

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